YUBERACTIVE.ASIA Launches with a “Beautiful” Bang

The World Wide Web is a force to be reckoned with. In the ultra-connected, digital generation of the 21st century, the Internet is arguably the greatest power on the planet. Now imagine what would happen if this power could be harnessed to promote social good? How would the world and the communities we live in benefit from that?

These are some of the questions that inspired the team at Group MAD, Malaysia’s leading youth marketing and branding consultancy, to create YUBERACTIVE — a free membership community website designed to inspire young people to take positive action through the power of stories.

This lively digital community is focused on bringing together people from all walks of life to a single online space at www.yuberactive.asia. The goal is to share transformative real, life stories that will motivate young people to take action and make changes on important social causes including at risk youth, education, culture and the arts as well as environment protection and animal conservation.

YUBERACTIVE, which went “live” on the net a few weeks ago, officially launched its revamped website on October 13th, 2012 at Ecoba restaurant, Taylor’s Lakeside Campus in Subang Jaya. Tagged as YUBERACTIVE.ASIA + Storytelling Through Beauty Challenge, the launch proved to be a unique celebration that connected the contrasting worlds of beauty, makeup and social causes.

Led by Joanne Teh, social media and outreach specialist at Group MAD, the team put together an exciting event to evoke creativity, connection and clarity about social issues. Guests of the event included YUBERACTIVE story contributors, popular beauty bloggers and StarAsia Brand Knights who are brand ambassadors for StarAsia Malaysia, a distributor of brand name fashion and beauty products.

“Youth, especially young women, are passionate about beauty and fashion. The challenge was to showcase how beauty can inspire art, creativity and positive action, and we decided to rise to the challenge!” said Teh. “As YUBERACTIVE is all about inspiring youth, we’re really happy to have found a great way to connect beauty with social causes at our launch.”

During the event, participants formed teams of 3 and identified a social cause they wanted to support such as eco awareness, breast cancer awareness, and wildlife and nature protection. Then it was time for some creativity and artistic inspiration as team members highlighted their chosen social cause through imaginative makeup and nail colour application.

The 1st prize of RM500 worth of Rimmel and Sally Hansen products went to the “Protect Wildlife and Nature” group for their innovative use of colour and design in their makeup, while the 2nd and 3rd prizes of RM400 and RM300 worth of Rimmel and Sally Hansen products went to “Heal the World” and “No Animal Skin” respectively. Prizes were generously sponsored by StarAsia Malaysia.

Happy Winners

Founder and Group MAD CEO Patrick Wee, who also played the role of emcee for the day, was pleased to note the enthusiastic response to the launch and the positive influence on the participants. “YUBERACTIVE is ultimately about the power of stories and our goal is to show that storytelling can take place in many ways — through speech, photos and actions, like what we have demonstrated here at this launch “ said Wee. “We want to highlight that sharing stories and experiences, thoughts and ideas in this way is a powerful method of invoking positive action among youth.”

One of the most popular blog contributors, Chin Jia Yee from Our Little Book Keeper, was a special guest at the launch event. She participated in a question and answer session with Wee to highlight her cause, which is to promote reading among children in the rural areas of Sabah by bringing them donated books. "YUBERACTIVE is a great way for Our Little Book Keeper to reach out to more people for book donations. Simply by giving out pre-loved books, you help to open up a whole new dimension for the children in these villages of Sabah. They are so willing to learn but hardly have any access to diverse reading materials other than their school's text books." said Chin.

Although YUBERACTIVE has only been online for just a few weeks, the vibrant, user-generated site is already beginning to capture attention in cyberspace with increasingly high numbers of community members signing up each month. With the continued support of the digital generation, especially around Asia, there is no doubt that YUBERACTIVE is set to achieve it’s ultimate goal — to inspire and promote social good through digital media.

Had fun with my teammate, Isabel & Jenifer at the event, thanks YUBERACTIVE!